Reading pen farming | Play YouTube in the background on iPhone

Feb 28, 2021

A few days ago, I upgraded both my iPhone and iPad to iOS 14, and I accidentally discovered a new world - YouTube background playback , let this article explain it!

■ Status

In fact, it is more accurate to call it "picture-in-picture", and the small picture can be reduced to a small label, floating on the edge of the screen, to achieve the effect of "background playback", which is a built-in function of iOS 14 .

It also depends on the level of support of the software. For YouTube, the use of “Picture-in-Picture” has been banned in its App version for a long time, but its Safari browser version has not been banned. The status quo is as follows:

on iPad
Whether you are a paid subscription to YouTube Premium or not, Safari supports YouTube Picture-in-Picture.
On iPhone <br class="smart">If you don't have a paid subscription to "YouTube Premium", the full-screen video will skip after clicking "picture-in-picture".

⚠️ Summary:
Applicable environment: iOS 14 + YouTube web version.
Non-paid subscribers: Limit iPhone, but not iPad.

■ Mountains do not turn and people turn: YouTube PIP shortcuts

" Shortcuts " is a feature introduced by Apple since the iOS 12 update. Simply put, it allows users to record a series of standard operations into a set of automated processes (macro) to derive various applications.

Experts are among the people, and the Reddit forum released a shortcut called "YouTube PIP", through which YouTube's "picture-in-picture/background playback" function can be implemented on the iPhone.

I refer to the original text of PTT and organize it as follows:

⚠️ Process:
→ ① In the Apple Store, download the " Shortcut " app (it should be built-in).
→ ② In the Apple Store, download the " Scriptable " App.
→ ③ Click Open to get the shortcut of " YouTube PIP ".
→ ④ Open the YouTube video, import the URL to the shortcut, and you're done.

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Step ③, if you are using "Shortcut" for the first time, you may encounter some troubles of "being sealed". There are two ways to deal with it:

First, open "Shortcuts", and find one of the built-in "Getting Started Shortcuts" to start it. This seems to activate the menu that is not seen in the iPhone's "Settings → Shortcuts". Next, go to "Settings → Shortcuts" and open it. "Allow untrusted shortcuts".

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Step ④ is not a big problem, just import the URL into the "Shortcut", you can execute it from YouTube's web version or the app version, the button to start is slightly different, but "the same goal".

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After the import is completed, it will be presented in the following figure in "YouTube PIP", you can adjust the speed, picture quality, and even a download button - finally press the "Home button" to return to the desktop, you can make room for other things Hello!